50 Shades Of MIRK!

So my plan was to submit myself (pun intended) to the ravages of the new runaway bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and then report back to Blogtown with a scathing review. But it turns out that what freelancers only dream of doing, Mercury associate Sarah Mirk does on her leave of absence.

If you're not familiar, Fifty Shades of Grey is the controversial (not really) bestseller that was originally conceived as a piece of Twilight fan fic that evolved into it's own story when it was deemed too dirty for the message boards. It went on to sell like crazy on Amazon, was eventually published by Vintage, and is now flying off of physical bookstore shelves.

It's basically a dirty retelling of Twilight involving a young college grad, Anastasia Steele, and a millionaire CEO, Christian Grey, who becomes obsessed with her. Except, here's the twist, she's a virgin and he's into BDSM, which freaks her out.

According to Sarah, the book is just as horrible as I imagined it would be after reading the first page, getting bored with the run on sentences, and skipping ahead to some sex scene which involved the sudden and violent clearing off of a desk. Some of her more choice observations:

1. Right from the start, main character Ana is as interesting as wet cardboard. Will she ever tame her messy hair? Will she ever be more than empty vessel whose primary personality trait is “confused”?! Wait and see. (spoiler: no)

2. Oh great, this is going to be a book about the problems of gorgeous college students who own Mercedes. I just have trouble commiserating with characters who own luxury cars.

3. If this is a Twilight rip-off, Ana is the dull, vacuous female lead and Christian Grey is the werewolf and the vampire combined into a sexy CEO who is really into modernist architecture and getting his way? This is more like porn remake of The Fountainhead.

4. Everything in Grey’s “architect utilitarian fantasy” office is made of steel. Ana’s last name is Steele. They should have just disbanded with the subtlety and made named her “Ana Getsfucked.”

Read the rest of this hilarious review and other updates on the book Sarah's working on here.